Move It Forward Leiden(NL) for Women’s Health

In collaboration with Women’s Business Initiative International, Webster University Leiden Campus and Women Entrepreneurship Platform, on 10-11 November 2018 in Leiden, the Netherlands, the Digital Leadership Institute organized a Move It Forward – female digital starters event. This event was supported by top technology companies, non-profit organisations, and youth and women’s networks and communities, and was an official activity of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day 2018, being celebrated on 19 November all around the world. The event’s objective is to give teen and adult women* the skills to become digital entrepreneurs and leaders, and to support them in driving positive change in their communities.
 

*Anyone who identifies as a woman


Move It Forward Leiden –  Programme:
Day One – 10 November (Saturday) :
  • 8:00-8:30 – Registration & Coffee
  • 8:30-10:30 – Opening Plenary:
  • Welcome
  • 10:30-12:30 – Workshop 1: Build & Launch your Online Presence in the Cloud with WordPress & AWS with Katja Legisa / DLI
  • 12:30 – 13:30 – Lunch Break
  • 13:30 -15:30 – Workshop 2: Develop a Smartphone App with MIT AppInventor for Android with Loredana Bucseneau / DLI
  • 15:30-18:00 – Brainstorming, Proposals, Idea Selection, Team Grouping and Project Work
  • 18:00-19:00 – Dinner
  • 19:00-22:00 – Project Work with Coaches

Day Two – 11 november (Sunday) :

  • 8:00-8:30 – Coffee and Danishes
  • 8:30-10:30 – Workshop 3: Google advertising and analytics / with Carina van Seling, Google
  • 10:30-12:30 – Project Work with Coaches
  • 12:30-13:30 – Lunch Break
  • 13:30-14:00 – Project Work with Coaches
  • 14.00-14.30 – Intoduction to successful pitching, Mr. Ron Lameij / Eisenfelt Academy
  • 14.30-16.00 – Project Work with Coaches
  • 16:00-17:00 – Presentation Preparation
  • 17:00-19:00 – Closing Plenary: Project Presentations and Judging, Awards
  • ++18:30 – Keynote Presentation of Ms. Snezana Zivcevska-Stalpers / IBM
  • 19:00-22:00 – Awards Dinner, Networking



Move It Forward Torino for Women Innovators

On 13-14 April in Turin, Italy, the Digital Leadership Institute, Women’s Entrepreneurship Platform, APID and their partners hosted a Move It Forward female digital starters event promoting Women Innovators.  Move It Forward is an initiative of inQube, DLI’s female digital accelerator, and is supported by top technology companies, non-profit organisations, and youth and women’s networks and communities. Its objective is to give teen and adult women* the skills to become digital entrepreneurs and leaders, and to support them in driving positive change in their communities.

*anyone who identifies as a woman

 

Global Recognition for DLI Founder

On 1 March in Barcelona, Ms. Cheryl Miller Van Dyck, founding director of the Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute, was recognized for her outstanding achievement in increasing participation of girls and women in technological studies and careers around the world. Miller, American by birth and a 20-year Belgian resident, was awarded the prestigious Global Mobile Award by a jury representing global ICT interests at the 2018 Mobile World Congress, whose attendance this year surpassed 100,000 visitors.

Miller received a GloMo Award in the “Industry Leadership Individual” category for what the jury called her “immeasurable impact” on increasing inclusion in the global tech sector over the past ten years.

The Digital Leadership Institute, founded by Miller in 2015, was also finalist for a Global Mobile Award in the “Industry Leadership Organizations” category, for the second year running.

For more details and contact, please find a press release here: PR CMiller Glomo 2018

Move It Forward Brussels for Women and Big Data

On 24-25 January in Brussels, the Digital Leadership Institute, Women’s Entrepreneurship Platform, Privacy Salon and their partners hosted a Move It Forward female digital starters event for Women’s Health and Big Data, as part of the 11th International Conference on Computers, Privacy and Data Protection.  Move It Forward is an initiative of inQube, DLI‘s female digital accelerator, and is supported by top technology companies, non-profit organisations, and youth and women’s networks and communities. Its objective is to give teen and adult women* the skills to become digital entrepreneurs and leaders, and to support them in driving positive change in their communities.

*anyone who identifies as a woman

Move It Forward Istanbul for Women and Cybersecurity

On 9-10 December in Istanbul, the Digital Leadership Institute, Women’s Entrepreneurship Platform, Kagider and their partners hosted a Move It Forward female digital starters event for Women and Cybersecurity.  Move It Forward is an initiative of inQube, DLI‘s female digital accelerator, and is supported by top technology companies, non-profit organisations, and youth and women’s networks and communities. Its objective is to give teen and adult women* the skills to become digital entrepreneurs and leaders, and to support them in driving positive change in their communities.

*anyone who identifies as a woman

DLI Celebrates Top Women in Tech

On 30 November 2017 at BeCentral in Brussels, the Digital Leadership Institute and its partners welcomed over two hundred key stakeholders and community members to celebrate the fifth edition of the European Ada Awards and to share the success stories of the 2017 Digital Brusselles project with support from the Digital Belgium Skills Fund. The Ada Awards are a long-standing pledge to the European Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition that recognise top European girls and women in tech and the organisations that support them.

Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, opened the evening with a warm thank you to DLI supporters, followed by keynote presentations from Ms. Céline Vanderborght, Brussels Region Smart City Manager and Ms. Andrea Almeida Cordero, Member of Cabinet for Ms. Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for the Digital Single Market. Both speakers committed their support and that of their stakeholders to active engagement of girls and women for fulfilling the vision of an inclusive digital Europe. A subsequent tweet about the event by Commissioner Gabriel was very well received on Twitter.

Opening presentations were succeeded by graduation of over sixty participants from the 2017 Digital Muse After School program with Ms. Valentina Cala DLI Digital Creative Manager, and from the first-ever cohort of the CYPRO “First Steps” program with Ms. Mai Ensmann, DLI CYPRO Coordinator.

Ms. Katja Legisa, Digital Brusselles Director, then recognised 200-plus participants of the 2017 “Female Digital Starters” training program, followed by an inQube / Digital Brusselles project pitching session hosted byMs. Lama Jaghjougha, a founder of Raise Women’s Awareness Network – RWAN. Initiatives presented included those launched in the context of inQube Move It Forward events over the past two years, including:

  • Brussely – a platform by/for/about Brussels Generation Y-ers, presented by Ms. Safia Bihmehdn
  • MESS – a gamified concert-going platform for Brussels citizens, presented by Ms. Alexandra Pykacz & Ms. Edith Euan
  • MIA – a virtual innovation space for Brussels citizens, presented by Ms. Muna Ibrahim
  • African Gist – an African tech internship program, presented by Ms. Cynthia Mukendy
  • Tabadoul – a professional mentorship program for women refugees led by ENoWM and DAW, presented by Ms. Sinem Yilmaz

A particularly moving moment of the evening came about when, as part of her pitch for the Brussely platform, Ms. Safia Bihmehdn read a poem she composed about her participation in the Move It Forward for Women in Media event, which as the poem describes, inspired her toward a whole new direction in digital entrepreneurship and in celebrating the youth and diversity of Brussels.

The final highlight of the evening was the 2017 European Ada Awards, launched with inspiring keynote presentations by Ms. Dinah Barret, Senior Solutions Architect for EMEA at Amazon Web Services, and Ms. Gabriela M. Juric, 2016 European Digital Girl of the Year, and co-hosted by Ms. Miller and Ms. Loredana Bucseneanu, DLI Strategy Officer.

2017 European Ada Award trophies were presented by Ms. Simone Hume of Amazon Web Services in the following categories and announced by noted Ada Award partner representatives:
1. Ms. Pascale Van Damme, Vice President and General Manager at Dell EMC Commercial Belux, is 2017 European Digital Woman of the Year, as announced by Ms. Austeja Trikunaite, Secretary General of CEPIS.

2. 2017 European Digital Girl of the Year honours were awarded in the following age categories:

15-17 Year Old Category, as announced by Ms. Kiki Walravens, GSMA:
Maeve Galvin (Ireland)

11-14 Year Old Category, as announced by Mr. Laurent Roux, Impact Officer at European Institute of Technology:

  • Aoibheann Mangan (Ireland)
  • Charlotte Johnson (United Kingdom)

10 Years and Under Category, as announced by Ms. Tomislava Recheva of European Schoolnet:

  • Helena Staple (United Kingdom)
  • Zara Ilyas (Ireland)
  • Ruby Scott Kenny (Ireland)

3. Teen-Turn of Ireland is 2017 European Digital Impact Organisation of the Year Award, as announced by Ms. Michela Palladino, Director of European Policy at Developers Alliance.

The 2017 European Ada Awards and Digital Brusselles celebration concluded with a reception catered by From Syria With Love, an organisation led by recent Syrian women refugees to Belgium that Digital Brusselles is honoured to support.

The Digital Leadership Institute and Digital Brusselles would like to thank the speakers, judges, partners and sponsors of the 2017 European Ada Awards and Digital Brusselles celebration, including the Digital Belgium Skills Fund, Amazon Web Services, European Institute of Technology, CEPIS, European Schoolnet, Edosoft, GSMA, Developers Alliance and BeCentral.

Congratulations to all the girls and women recognised by this year’s Ada Awards and Digital Brusselles celebration. We are looking forward to welcoming even more of you again next year!

DLI Founder Appointed to EU Digital Skills Board

On 28 September in Brussels, Ms. Cheryl Miller, Founder and Director of the Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute, joined the first meeting of the Governing Board of the European Commission’s Digital Skill and Jobs Coalition, to which Ms. Miller has been appointed for a two-year term.

According to the Commission, the aim of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Governing Board is to “provide strategic leadership and give high-level advice to improve the functioning and the impact of the Coalition, as well as monitoring its overall progress.” The Governing Board also represents the views of the Coalition partners at European level, and acts as a link between pledgers, national Coalitions and social partners.

At its first meeting, Ms. Miller accepted to lead the Governing Board’s work on “digital skills for ICT experts,” one of four digital skills pillars treated as priorities by the Coalition. Ms. Miller and her colleagues will provide recommendations in these areas to the new European Commissioner for the Digital Single Market, Ms. Mariya Gabriel, in the context of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Conference, taking place in Brussels on 7 December.

Ms. Miller joins representatives of eleven other Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition stakeholders in the Governing Board, whose organisations represent pledging members, national coalitions, and Coalition social partners.

DLI Launches Europe’s First Female Tech Incubator

On 25 October in Brussels, the Digital Leadership Institute launched Digital Brusselles, Europe’s first female tech incubator, with the mission of promoting inclusive digital transformation by increasing leadership of girls and women in the digital society. The launch event, which took place as part of the first Open Door Day at BeCentral, was supported by the Digital Belgium Skills Fund and dozens of DLI partners, and attended by hundreds of DLI community members.

Ms. Saskia Van Uffelen, CEO of Ericsson Belux and Digital Champion of Belgium, provided a keynote to kick off the launch event and was joined in a panel on “The Heart of Inclusive Digital Transformation,” moderated by Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, by luminaries from the Belgian and European technology ecosystem noted below:

The opening panel was followed with inspiring talks by Ms. Manon Van Hoorebeke, 2014 Digital Girl of the Year, and Ms. Christine Gerpheide, Senior Cloud Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services. Over the course of the afternoon, Ms. Sandrine Droubaix — DJ Sand — and Ms. Valentina Càla, DLI Digital Creative Officer, led hands-on digital music composition workshops for participants of the Digital Muse After School program and BeCentral’s Open Door Day .

DLI Among Top Startups in Belgium

On 19 October, Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute joined Digital First 2017 to celebrate being selected among the Best 100 Belgian Startups by a high-level jury organised by media company Digimedia. DLI team members, Ms. Valentina Calà and Ms. Katrien Geraedts, were on hand to greet investors and discuss the work of DLI, who has successfully launched Europe’s first female tech incubator, Digital Brusselles, and is driving world class programs to differentiate Brussels, Belgium and Europe as “the heart of inclusive digital transformation.”

“With a three-year track record as a social enterprise, DLI is outperforming most startups even outside its class,” shares DLI Founder, Ms. Cheryl Miller, about the recognition. “We believe this is as much about how innovative and impactful our work is, as it is about the engagement and dedication of our partners to our mission,” she says. “It is not every day, for example, that organisations like Amazon Web Services and the Digital Belgium Skills Fund come together to help drive positive change,” says Ms. Miller. “This is a testament to both the quality of the work we are doing and to just how important that work is — for which we feel very honoured.”